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Sounds like you're using a trial version. Paid versions do not have any watermark or logo.
Thanks for the quick reply. I've had the software on my laptop for months, and have used it from time to time.
Only a few minutes ago I opened it again to see a splash screen about it being a Trial Version. Odd that I had not seen that message before. Anyway, now I know what to do.
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There are several ways to record a section of the screen:
The online Help pages describes how to use each of these.
Using the "Custom" function will not remove or "hide" the logo "Screen Recorder by Cyberlink" in the lower right corner of a recording.
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Thank you. Actually, I have reviewed several tutorials about using keyframes and PIP Designer None, so far, appear to explain your method.
Apparently this is not a forum where a newbie can get detailed help, so I will keep using your example until I figure out what is not working on my end. I am using PowerDirector 365. I do appreciate your attempt to assist.
This did work for me, although I'll need to adjust the time duration to slow the pan:
"To use your clip in the sample project, simply import it into the Media library then drag it directly onto the sample clip on the timeline and choose Replace from the pop-up menu."
However this comment "... all you need to do is use the PiP Designer to zoom in so you have a small amount of content visible then set a starting position keyframe." implies a sequence of steps which I have yet to replicate in PowerDirector 365.
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You may want to watch a tutorial on keyframes to see how they work in PD. Here's one place to start and maybe StevenG can recommend one of his.
Thank you. Actually, I have reviewed several tutorials about using keyframes and PIP Designer None, so far, appear to explain your method.
I once worked with a colleague who remarked, on occasion, that "The problem with communication is the assumption that it has happened."
Apparently this is not the place for a newbie to get detailed help, so I will keep using your example until I figure out what is not working on my end. I am using PowerDirector 365. I do appreciate your attempt to assist.
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With Photoshop, it’s easy to convert the still images from your 360 views into an MP4 file. This is especially helpful if you’re trying to show your 360 views on Amazon, YouTube, or some other gigantic juggernaut website.
Step 1: Open Photoshop & Choose Your ImageMake sure each set of 360 view images gets put into its own folder. This will not work if you have multiple sets of 360 view images in a single folder. Once Photoshop is open, go to File > Open. Next, select the folder that has your 360-degree images and click on the first image (just the first image–do not select them all). Before clicking “Open”, click the checkbox for “Image Sequence”.
Step 2: Open & Choose Your Video SettingsClick Open. A dialog will open. Select “Custom” for the frame rate and enter a frame rate between 3 and 7. Anything outside of that range is usually too slow or too fast. However, feel free to experiment and set it to a speed that lets people see your product at a comfortable rotation speed.
Step 3: Set the Video LengthTo to increase the length of your video, select the layer and click Layer > Duplicate Layer. The more times you duplicate the latter, the longer the video will be. Shoppers are more inclined to click a short video, so try to keep yours in the range of 30 to 60 seconds.
All done!
If you notice that your video has black bars along the top or sides, then don’t worry – these were going to show up no matter what! However, if you go back and re-crop your images to an aspect ratio of 16:9 (or 1920×1080 pixels) then you can say goodbye to those black bars, and your video will have a perfectly white background.
Good to know, however I do not use Photoshop. I want to use PowerDirector.
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If you're looking to convert the 360 jpeg into a standard 2D clip as mentioned in the title of your OP, all you need to do is use the PiP Designer to zoom in so you have a small amount of content visible then set a starting position keyframe. Then go to the end of the clip and set the final position keyframe.
I made a quick sample project that you can download from here, and this is what the 360° JPG looks like in the Media Library and then zoomed in on the timeline:
I've also attached the produced clip which is only 5 sec long - but you can change it to any duration you like. You'll need to delete the postion keyframe at 5 seconds so the panning will continue to the actual end of a longer clip, though.
To use your clip in the sample project, simply import it into the Media library then drag it directly onto the sample clip on the timeline and choose Replace from the pop-up menu.
Thank you so much for your sample project, and the result looks great. That is what I want to do.
However I am having difficulty interpreting your comment "... all you need to do is use the PiP Designer to zoom in so you have a small amount of content visible then set a starting position keyframe."
I imported my 360 jpg file (rectilinear), moved it to the Timeline and selected it. Then Tools > PIP Designer to open the PIP Designer window. I zoom in a little. From there I do not comprehend how to proceed. I don't see a way to set the starting or ending position keyframes in PIP Designer.
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Have you tried keyframing positions for using the View Designer? That sounds like exactly what it's made to do.
Thanks for the suggestion, and I explored it (only one Keyframe can be created), however I am starting with a 360 image, not a 360 video.
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I have a 360 photo from a camera stationary on a tripod.
I would like to create a short video as though the camera was being slowly rotated 360 degrees horizontally.
I have a labor-intensive method of blending a sequence copies of the same 360 file, each with progressive horizontal shift in the view.
Any suggestions for a faster, better method?
(a simpler overall method would have been to originally rotate a 2D camera on a tripod at various vertical angles.)
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I found that if I apply "reverse" to a video clip, and use one of more Title clips on other tracks, the video jerks at the start and end of the Title clips. If I remove the 'reverse', there is no jerky motion in the video. Since I frequently want to reverse a video clip, I'd like to find a resolution. Any suggestions?
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You're right. I took "Edit Mode" to mean back in the main timeline. i.e. your project AR.
Still, if you only crop in 16:9 in a 16:9 project, you shouldn't be getting black bars. Glad you have it resolved anyway.
Cheers - Tony
Guess I will have to go read the Manual to understand your point. :
When I use PD15, I see 'Capture' - 'Edit' - 'Produce' - 'Create Disc' in the Menu area.
I was referring to using 'Edit' and looking at the timeline while doing editing.
I'm up for some education because I have not discovered how to configure/start/create "a 16:9 Project". Didn't know I needed to do that.
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Hi JohnG777 -
Maybe the "simple/obvious thing you may have missed" is making sure that 16:9 aspect ratio is checked in the Crop/Zoom window.
In a 16:9 project, if you crop at 16:9 there'll be no letterboxing. If you choose 4:3. 9:16 or Freeform cropping in a 16:9 project, there will be.
This applies whatever the camera or resolution.
Cheers - Tony
Thanks Tony, perhaps you missed or misunderstood this comment in my post: "I am using 16:9 Aspect Ratio during Edit mode".
Initially, I did have a letterboxing result which lost me some time in getting approved by Shutterstock. That's why I wrote this post.
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Posting this as a tip for others. Maybe there are other comments to be heard on this forum about this Subject. Maybe there is something "simple; obvious" that I missed. :
I finally found a way to avoid a pillar on the left side when using the Crop&Zoom function under Power Tools. I wanted to crop to reduce the proportion of sky to ground in a 50 second clip for uploading to Shutterstock. At first I placed the crop zone in the lower left corner. That resulted in a pillar on the left side. Then I centered the crop zone from left to right. That resulted in a video with no pillar on either side.
(My source file is in 4K at 30fps. I am using 16:9 Aspect Ratio during Edit mode, with 15 Video Stabilizer and 30 Video Enhancement. In Produce mode the Output is set for the same resolution and frame rate to deliver an mp4 file at 50Mbps.)
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Hi,
Couple of things:
Is the "bump" the same in the produced file as in the Youtube preview example, maybe post up a video of the produced file showing the bump for comparison?
Could you "mimic" the fade transition by placing the clips on different timelines and manually altering the opacity to achieve the same effect, instead of adding the fade transition to adjacent clips. This will isolate the fade transition from the equation??
Cheers
PowerDirector Moderator
Thanks. Unfortunately I did not save the pds file or the Produce file after making the example.
I just now went to recreate the example... and no bump to be seen.
When I said earlier that I turned off Hardware Acceleration, it is possible that I did that later. Anyway, at the moment HA is Off, and I am unable to recreate the problem. Could be that HA is the root of my problems recently. (Perhaps there could have been an issue involving Malwarebytes?)
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"You don't work with your "original" footage." means, that PD imports your footage and internally converts it for an optimized presentation, so you can edit it. (shadow files, preview quality). So if you have an effect within PD, it is not necessarily in your original footage, nor in the produced result. Sometimes, the edited clip cannot be presented in real time. That results in bumps in preview.
"The bump is in the produced clip.": Uhh, then my only advice is to deactivate hardware acceleration while producing.
Hatti
Now I understand.
Thanks for thinking about the problem.
My next step will be to forward a link to this thread, to Cyperlink tech support and see if there is a response.
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I see the bump. In PD - yes. You don't work with your "original" footage. Is it also in the produced clip?
Hatti
Not sure what you mean by: "You don't work with your "original" footage." I import mp4 video files into PD, then use the imported files. (The original files are safe in a source folder.)
The bump is in the produced clip.
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It would be good to provide maybe a youtube video to see whats going on. "A little bump" is not enough.
- For slowing down/speeding up a clip, make it with an integer multiple of your desired result. Hmpf, sounds not good, does it? I dont know mathematics in english : Ok, example: You want to have a resulting video of 30fps. So make your clip 30fps (no slow down), 60fps (1/2 slow down), 120fps (1/4 slow down) and so on. Doing it not will result in jerkyness. If you have a 30fps clip and you slow it down to half the duration, PowerDirector will throw away half of the frames. That results in a 15fps video clip. Uhhhh. The same with speeding up. If you have a 30fps video, and you speed it up, PowerDirector has to "invent" new frames, this is mostly done by duplication a frame. PD16 can "smooth" such a slow down/speeding up, but it is not a very good alghorithm. PD15 cannot smooth speed changes in any way.
- Try to deactivate hardware acceleration. That results in longer render time, but quality before time...
No more ideas now. Show us an example.
Hatti
Thanks for the insight on speed adjustment. It is odd that PD15 presents a control for tiny adjustments of speed, yes? But I understand your point about multiples of fps.
Here is a YouTube video with an example of some of the problems I am seeing. As I say in the Description, the "bump" happens soon after the end of the Fade effect. (When I apply the Fade effect, I drag the object over the line that indicates where two clips meet (not on one side or the other, but evenly across the line).
I have disabled HA, however the problem is still visible.
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Hello and thanks for reading this. I continue to encounter jerky and uneven results when assembling real estate ad videos.
I want smooth transitions from clip to clip, both stylistically (seques) and technically (nice cross-fades). I'm close to good style results, however the technical results are not so good. I have not discovered anything in the tutorials that gets to the problems I am seeing. Most of the tutorials address the basics, but not the issues I am having, so far as I have found.
I am using a Lenovo P70 with typically more than 40GB free space.
Here's my current routine. Maybe some of you can point out some things that I am doing that while they make sense to me, may be unfortunate actions with PowerDirector15.
I have a variety of clips with scenes shot with a drone. In post I often want to reverse some clips for a nicer seque. Sometimes I want to speed up a clip. Sometimes slow one down. I typically like to use a basic Fade from one clip to the next. I also find that the fade effect is too long for my tastes, so I try to shorten the default fade length using the visual UI (click and drag to shorten).
Problems seen: a) an odd and annoying little bump in the video just after a fade. b) jerkiness from frame to frame in a clip that has been slowed down or reversed.
There are more problems when I attempt to sync to the beat of a soundtrack. Sometimes there are "more than 25" which freezes my laptop when Wave Editor opens, a technical problem I have reported to Cyberlink (not resolved yet, however I have not done all of the suggested fixes yet). After I delete some of the beat markers, I now have a challenge of what is the best way to "stretch" or "shorten" one clip after another from start to finish of the video to match the nearest beat markers to the junction of two clips. This is more difficult if attempted after applying the (cross) Fade effect.
Sometimes I appear to "get lucky" and a transition works like it should. Other times not. More not than should, lately. I must have fallen in to an unfortunate routine when using PD15.
I'm open to suggestions, as the song goes. There's probably a sequence of Best Practices that would avoid the problems I an experiencing. What appears like it should work, does not, or not well. What I see is not always what I get.
Thanks for reading.
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Hi John
Referring to your third point. If copying and pasting was your problem you would not be able to remove the "ghosting" frame by frame as you describe because it simply would not be there. A gap is just a gap which would show as a black area in the preview screen. It would not be attached to any clip. Your ghosting must a part of the actual clip for you to be able to remove it. Is it possible that you had a fade transition at the end of the clip. Did you perhaps overlap and then select crossfade and then split the clip leaving the crossfade.
It would help if you could describe the ghosting in a little more detail and perhaps post a screen shot
Yes I have used the Fade effect and others, and that appears to set up a situation where the reported problem appears. I'm now more cautious about applying those effects, and wait to do so until just prior to Produce. It would be nice if there was a consolidated tip sheet that suggests a pattern of using PowerDirector that avoids this and other problems during editing. Most of the self-help videos appear to be either product sales tools, or general intro briefings. Of course there is the official manual. :
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Edit - just re-read your second post and I think that my answer is what you are already doing (you are going to the end by pressing the "End" key on the keyboard aren't you). I don't see a way to avoid having to go to the end several times if you're way of working creates multiple empty spaces on the timeline/s  .
Second thought - Assuming you are using the "End" key, then that will take you to the end of the last 'orphan'. You can now hold down your left mouse buton and drag backwards across the timeline to where you want to finish and everything in that region will be selected. Just one delete will then get rid of everything.
Third try - I've misunderstood haven't I  . You are talking about removing gaps in the timeline and want to remove all of them in one go. It's a question that has come up in the past but I don't know of a way to do it. However, I wonder why those gaps are appearing in the first place. I'd suggest that you check your preferences and make sur that in the "Editing" section you have got "Enable snap to clips in timeline" ticked.
Thanks for taking the time to respond! About your first thought: At my current level of expertise... I place the vertical marker and line to be very near to the end of the last segment and it usually snaps to the "end" (yes, "Enable snap to clips in timeline" is checked).
About your second thought: I have not been using the End key. Thanks for the tip! However I have been checking for problems by placing the vertical line past the end of the last desired segment. When doing that, it wasn't clear that the undesired frames had been selected. However pressing the Delete key does delete them and snaps the vertical line back to the end of the desired segment.
I suspect that some of my unwanted gaps/frames are because of occasionally using CTRL+C and CTRL+V to cut and paste, then not paying enough attention to placement of the vertical line (I should expand the timeline when I do that, for more granualarity of view). It's also possible that I am misinterpreting the effect of some of the "insert" options in different editing contexts.
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Rather frustrating to see a video blip of a few frames after the end of a clip. Tried everything I could think of, but the blip continues. Apparently "Remove" does not actually work all the time. Any suggestions?
I found a way to resolve the problem when it happens: (1) Start at the supposed end of the video. (2) Step forward one frame at a time until the first "ghost" (unwanted) frame appears. (3) Press the Delete key. Repeat as needed. I found no other way to reveal those frames AND remove them. Maybe there's another way to avoid this situation altogether.
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